Does anyone still shop at HMV?

Ha, I'll offer them £10,000 a year for it myself!

if you were a billionaire with no caring for profits you could have too amazing (but lossmaking) stores in the HMV and old Tower Records shops.

Absolutely!

believe me I've dreamt about winning £150m in the euro lottery (that i dont even play) and opening the best record shop ever in the old tower store

i believe you, algerian goalkeeper

glasgow still has a p gd selection of independent rec shops imho, fuck hmv (new volcanic tongue just for eg is nice bright space that literally shuts the outside world right out - esp if coltrane is the stereo system, as it was when i visited recently)

is ON the stereo system - tho might now get a t-shirt w/ 'coltrane is the stereo system' printed on it

Worth bearing in mind a load of old established businesses were pushed out of the top end of Buchanan Street by those high rents in order to facilitate development a few years back. I'm sure they'll be delighted to hear HMV is now (apparently) getting a reduced rate.

right.

some info.

fopp is not going to be sold off seperately as a going concern (: 'they dont want to create a competitor - as this was one of the reasons that hmv bought fopp in the first place'

25th of march - or thereabouts - is the crunch date as the next 3 month rent payments are due.

given the dearth of decent stock in both hmv and fopp now, going to be interesting what happens between now and then.

oh, and you have to love the large decarations of "70% off!*" signs scattered around the shops.

( * = calenders )

HMV intent on dragging Fopp down with them then...dunno what would happen if it all went tits up, could some plucky entrepeneur just pick up the Fopp brand at that point or would there be complications with doing that? Assuming that Fopp actually has any value as a business concern, which may or may not be the case.

'they dont want to create a competitor - as this was one of the reasons that hmv bought fopp in the first place'

ladies and gentlemen, may i present to you BRITISH BUSINESS ACUMEN. all hail the job creator.

I had a very similar discussion with an acquaintance from the Argyle Street branch just last night mark e - the 3 months rent/end of March issue is certainly true there too and the fact that despite facing closure they are still getting new stock delivered daily in very large quantities (like hundreds of copies of big new releases).

I hadn't thought about the Fopp issue like that, but it makes perfect sense. Could you hint as to where you heard that so specifically?

no hint necessary : bristol

oh, and i should clarify : they do have new releases in ..

just that the back catalogue stuff is nowhere near as extensive as prior to the chaos ...

(and yesterday in the hmv - they were removing shelving as they were all empty !)

Volcanic Tongue which does underground, presumably Wire-friendly stuff (oh shops, where were you back in '78 and '79 when I was scouring around Glasgow for free jazz cutouts?). So again it's a niche shop, and if no HMV and only supermarkets, then huge middle ground is lost.

It's ironic that you can get Wire in every branch of WHSMiths: streets, stations, airports, and so on...

but you cant get the records they cover anywhere unless you go into a big city

exactly.

Oh, "Republic" has just been saved, by Sports Direct.

Only a tiny number of new CD releases in Nottingham Fopp, along with stacks and stacks of the Skyfall DVD of course.

This week Atoms For MVE are #2 in the midweeks. Last week Nick Cave was #1 in the midweeks but lost out to the Brits swoop (i.e. people who won't buy anything until they see it on TV, even if it's been out for a year plus). Neither was in Sainsbury's.

So without HMV or Fopp (or Virgin or Tower or...) to provide that essential middle ground, it's going to be bland-out time in the album charts from now on.

Looks like the new MBV album is only available physically in Certain London Record Shops (I got mine at Sister Ray last Friday) and given the limited distribution plus the fact that it's been available to download for a month, that'll presumably be number nothing on Sunday.

guys, the album chart is going to be bland from now on

Only until they add in view counts for Youtubes of people holding up album covers.

It has to happen.

Marcello, at least in Glasgow there is us at Love Music and Monorail. We both cover huge amounts of the middle ground and will happily tackle new avenues if they will sell!

yep, Love Music gd for metal and well priced back cat, Monorail v. excellent independent/eclectic range w/out going down the VT route of cd-rs and whatnot

Russell gets in lots of good metal for Monorail.

Both shops do their thing very well. Between them they cover most of my needs whenIm in Glasgow (which sadly isnt often - once a year usually)

Wandered into the Piccadilly Circus HMV last night to have a look around - the jerks have raised the price of all the back catalog CDs before marking everything 30% off. So, say, any random old REM album or whatever is now priced between £13 to £15 (some were at £18!) before the 'discount.' Good riddance.

there is no longer the blue cross sale on.
the stickers are still on the cds, but they called it quits last sunday.

Huh. The shop I was in had everything marked down 30%, with a little chart above each rack telling you how much the discount amounted to.

Yeah, that is still happening.

Still, I got the CSS album, New Order "Get Ready", and Basement Jaxx greatest hits, all for £2 each.

This was in morrisons, not HMV, but hey.

must be a localised thing as bristol cribbs and city centre no longer give the discount ..

from Music Week:

WH Smith re-enters the CD/DVD market – report

WH Smith has reportedly started to stock CDs and DVDs again after the collapse of HMV has left a gap in the retail market. The stationary chain withdrew from the entertainment market over the last few years but is now said to be re-stocking products in a handful of stores, after the closure of 107 HMV sites.

Not surprising, but WHSmiths is such a fucking awful retail experience that I can't see them doing a good job or it working in any way whatsoever. In the face of supermarkets I just can't see the point in any high street retailers trying to be generalist.

I'm surprised Smiths are managing to pull through all this turmoil. Our local branch has felt like one big closing down sale for years and years now.

yeah, i guess people must buy a lot of stationery or something?

I used to love the record and tape department in WH Smith when I was a kid. Bought most of my early records from there (except for a few from Sperrings further down the precinct)

I did used to buy DVDs and stuff from Smiths before they stopped doing em. They had good deals in there.

I'm still beyond baffled that Exeter HMV has Spotify POS merchandising bullshit out on the shopfloor. INVITE YOUR OWN MURDERER INTO YOUR BOUDOIR, WHY DON'T YOU.

Little know fact: Crippen used to sell "Hangman Style" t-shirts from his cell...

i worked at whsmiths through my university years and it was there that i first realised that people who run massive chain store operations can be so blinded by greed and pursuit for profit that they can fuck up their businesses with ineptitude and bad, bad decisions.

Can't imagine WH Smith would stock anything that you can't get in Tesco/Sainsburys etc, it's not as if they're going after 50 quid man.

Every year I'm baffled the WHS hasn't gone under yet.

Asda etc dont stock a lot of magazines that Smiths do

is the retail margin on magazines any good?

I can't imagine so.

all the magazines i read are easily £2 a month cheaper on subscription, including postage. and there's a lot more to whsmiths than the high street stores.

Distribution

this week : buy one get one free on all items with a blue cross on.

hence why i now have the first five killing joke remastered cds.

(note : one of the killing joke cds did not have a blue cross on it, so i questioned saying if it did i would have got that along with another - so they checked the master list, and accepted that it should have had the blue cross sticker on it - result !)

Today: Bracknell shop is closing.

Most things half-price. Everything else reduced by at least 30%